The FMLA says employers can run out the FMLA clock by counting paid time off against an employee's 12-week leave entitlement. Make sure employees understand how that works. That way, employees won’t run out of leave and lose their jobs because they didn’t realize the FMLA clock was ticking.

Most lawsuits are not triggered by great injustices. Instead, simple management mistakes and perceived slights start the snowball of discontent rolling downhill toward the courtroom. Here are 12 of the biggest manager mistakes that harm an organization’s credibility in court.

Employees can’t be deprived of FMLA leave as long as they meet the law’s requirements for length of employment and hours worked and must deal with their own or a family member’s serious health condition. After FMLA leave has been approved, it’s a huge mistake to question employees about how they use their leave. Essentially, doing so may be interpreted as interference with the right to take leave.

FMLA regulations give employers several options for calculating how much leave employees are entitled to at any given time. Which method should your organization select? That depends on how much record-keeping you want to do.

Some employers mistakenly believe that women can't take FMLA intermittent leave when they become pregnant. That’s simply not true. Women may take intermittent leave for normal prenatal care and any “incapacity” during pregnancy.

Q. We have an employee who wants to take a chunk of paid time off. She is eligible for FMLA leave. We want to start deducting the time off from her 12-week entitlement. Usually we require employees to provide a medical certification. But in this case, we are more interested in making sure she doesn’t take unpaid FMLA leave later after her paid leave bank is exhausted. Can we just do this?

Do you have employees who take intermittent FMLA leave to deal with their own health conditions? If so, you might worry that they sometimes abuse that leave by calling in when their condition supposedly flares up, only to go to work at a second job. Here’s how to handle that situation:

When employers get sloppy and don’t document their decision-making proc­­esses, things can get dicey. Consider what happens when an employee experiences work stress and starts taking FMLA and other leave. In one recent case, the employer was smart enough to carefully track its efforts to both accommodate an employee and get her back to work.